India’s pursuit of BMD is no longer optional—it is a strategic imperative to counterbalance China’s growing nuclear shield and evolving war doctrines.
Image Source: Pallava Bagla/via Getty Images
The acquisition of Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) is crucial for India’s defence against two nuclear-armed adversaries. An Indian BMD capability is all the more necessary because of the Chinese acquisition of BMD capabilities. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is on course to acquiring and integrating a new ballistic missile defence dubbed the HQ-29, in late June 2025, which is considered to be more advanced than the HQ-19 BMD system and is believed to bear a close resemblance to the American Theatre High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system. The HQ-29 is part of what was, until recently, the absent upper-most layer of China’s multi-tiered missile defence system. It is an advanced high-altitude mid-course projectile designed and geared to execute mid-course interceptions of ballistic missiles outside the Earth’s atmosphere. The HQ-29 interceptors are ostensibly intended for deterrence, aiming to prevent satellite warfare and hypersonic attacks. Paired with the HQ-19, which is designed and deployed to carry out mid-course interceptions of Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs) such as India’s Agni-V IRBMs, the HQ-19 has already witnessed deployment in Jilantai in Inner Mongolia, and now the HQ-29 significantly enhances the People's Liberation Army (PLA) capabilities to protect Chinese critical infrastructure and territory.
It is an advanced high-altitude mid-course projectile designed and geared to execute mid-course interceptions of ballistic missiles outside the Earth’s atmosphere.
Some top Indian nuclear experts have partially conceded the need for India to develop and deploy its own Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system as point defence systems to defend against hostile nuclear tipped missile attack targeting air bases, nuclear installations, submarine bases and command, control and communications centres, they take exception to defending against cities and towns. Undoubtedly, there are financial costs associated with a wider Indian BMD architecture that covers defences for Indian urban centres. However, this analysis underscores the need to augment India’s BMD capabilities for three key reasons, particularly to extend missile defence coverage to as much of the population as possible in light of China’s advances in active defences against both conventional and nuclear attacks.
First, the strategy of Assured Destruction (AD) or Assured Retaliation (AR) is insufficient to deter nuclear threats, especially from the PRC. A fairly expansive BMD system is important for India’s pursuit of a No First Use (NFU) policy. Indeed, the latter makes it more imperative since India will have to absorb a first strike before retaliating. This first strike itself could involve a decapitation attack, eliminating a large chunk of India's retaliatory forces. The Chinese themselves have been somewhat ambiguous about their own NFU. Notably, according to some incisive analysis, there is evidence that the Chinese commitment to NFU is not as watertight as declared doctrinally by the PRC, especially if Chinese nuclear forces were to be struck by the adversary’s conventional weapons. China’s commitment to combining its nuclear and conventional capabilities will make the prospect of Chinese nuclear first use more probable, because the adversary will not be able to distinguish between the PRC’s conventional and nuclear capabilities.
Chinese atomic use that can be executed through ‘exemplary’ strikes against Indian land-based counterforce targets would be devastating not just for its ground-based retaliatory forces, but equally its dense civilian populations co-located or close to air bases, nuclear installations, and command and control centres.
Further, if the Chinese were facing the serious prospect of defeat in a conventional war, they may resort to at least limited nuclear use. This limited nuclear use could be devastating for India, given its smaller nuclear forces, which stand at around 180 weapons and Pakistan’s stockpile, standing at 170 weapons—India’s other neighbouring adversary. Meanwhile, the PRC has an estimated stockpile of 600 weapons, and its arsenal is one of the fastest-growing in the world. Chinese atomic use that can be executed through ‘exemplary’ strikes against Indian land-based counterforce targets would be devastating not just for its ground-based retaliatory forces, but equally its dense civilian populations co-located or close to air bases, nuclear installations, and command and control centres. Chinese BMD capabilities—such as the HQ-19 and the latest HQ-29—serve as a strong defensive shield against nuclear-armed missile attacks. This is why a pure AD policy, on India’s part, is not only dangerous from a strategic standpoint, but from a moral perspective as well. Parting ways with fellow nuclear strategists on whether to pursue a strategy based on MAD or AD, the late Henry Kissinger—under whose tenure the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty was concluded—noted that the erstwhile Soviet Union and the United States (US) were able to manage their nuclear rivalry through a framework rooted in AD.. Yet he vehemently objected to it in the post-Cold War era because there were greater incentives and motivation among a larger number of nuclear-armed states to use nuclear weapons. These uses could be deliberate, unauthorised or accidental and therefore, as Kissinger contended, BMD capabilities were necessary.
More consequentially, even if a part of India’s nuclear capabilities were to survive a Chinese atomic first strike, especially the naval submarine-launched nuclear leg, this residual nuclear-tipped missile force launched from Indian nuclear submarines could be easily intercepted by the PRC’s ballistic missile defences. Therefore, basing strategy on MAD or mutual annihilation is morally abhorrent, reprehensible, and strategically naïve, especially in the context of India’s dual burden – its extant No First Use (NFU) policy coupled with New Delhi’s entanglement in a triangular nuclear contest with China and Pakistan. India must make every effort through active defences such as BMD to protect as many of its large population centres as possible.
Second, and just as significantly, China’s pursuit of a native BMD capability and its advances in this area lend it a first-strike advantage and will likely generate greater temptations to strike first in the event of China suffering conventional battlefield losses in a war against India. Critically, it grants the PRC a significant damage-limitation capability. While India may not match China’s missile defences, a substantial investment in its own BMD systems can alter the risk calculus by introducing greater restraint in China’s willingness to strike first.
BMD systems can be deployed aboard mobile ground-based launchers, sea-based platforms, air-borne interceptors and space-based systems.
Finally, as American Cold War nuclear strategist Herman Kahn noted, there are prospects and opportunities for technological spin-offs from the pursuit of missile defence Research and Development (R&D), keeping the defence science and engineering establishment and its community motivated to overcome challenging technical and scientific tasks. This R&D could generate a wealth of data on the performance of specific technologies. In this regard, increased resource allocation for missile defence R&D would enhance the reliability of interceptor systems across all phases of flight—boost, mid-course, and terminal—and drive innovation in sensor technologies, radar systems, directed-energy weapons, hit-to-kill mechanisms for both exo-atmospheric and endo-atmospheric interceptions, fragmentation warheads, and more. BMD systems can be deployed aboard mobile ground-based launchers, sea-based platforms, air-borne interceptors and space-based systems. Most importantly, R&D and eventual deployment of BMD systems will prevent the adversary from making a technological breakthrough in crucial technologies, helping India stay ahead on the technological curve, or at least Indian BMD-related R&D will help match the Chinese in BMD technologies if there is sustained monetary investment. Given the totality of these factors, it is indispensable that India work with greater intensity in building up and strengthening its BMD capabilities.
Kartik Bommakanti is a Senior Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Kartik is a Senior Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme. He is currently working on issues related to land warfare and armies, especially the India ...
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